Don't get carried away by dreams of a new flag

The matter was finally settled in 1977 when a national poll scored Advance Australia Fair first with 43.29 per cent, Waltzing Matilda 28.28 per cent, God Save the Queen 18.78 per cent and Song of Australia 9.65 per cent.

Changing Australia's national colours went almost unnoticed. I can still recall the stunned looks on the faces of the directors of the Australian Bicentennial Authority when, at our inaugural meeting in 1980, the chairman informed us that our national colours were blue and gold and would be used on all official documents.

That changed in 1984 when Mick Young, special minister of state, altered them to green and gold. No one demurred.

FitzSimons identified the problem when he told the 60 Minutes meeting, "We come from all the lands on earth. Let's have a flag that represents that." As not one of the 55,000 entries in the previous competition have managed to achieve that objective, I wish him the best of British luck.

For a flag to be acceptable to most Australians it must be uniquely Australian, aesthetically pleasing and capable of stirring the hearts and minds of the nation.

Perusing the nearly 200 flags of the UN, I selected a dozen which, in my opinion, fulfilled those requirements including Lebanon, Israel, Britain, Kenya, Sri Lanka, India and Papua New Guinea. Undoubtedly, others would have chosen differently.

I like the Blue Ensign; my objection is that our present flag is indistinguishable from New Zealand's. If they change it, I'll stick with ours. If the new flaggers produce something special, then so be it. My preference was for the coat-of-arms in gold on a dark green background. Maybe the time has come for another competition, but let's remember the words of the one person at the meeting who kept it all in perspective, Ron Barassi: "It's only a flag." Amen.